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To me lackey is the most frustrating part of the season. I Gree with you final note, he is better than this. What troubles me is the control (or lack thereof). My guess is that a 5.00 ERA over 8 starts (I think) probably isn't that unusual for Lackey and he will start pitching better soon. Ithink his season looks a bit worse because a couple of his bad starts (Tampa in pril, Detroit last week) came when they needed a good outing from him.

It was a foolish signing, and I said so at the time. They already had five pitchers, all of them better than Lackey. Yes, they needed a sixth starter, but that shouldn't cost $82.5 million and pushing Wake into that role has messed up his chances of getting Sox records he deserves -- the same treatment as he got in 99-01, when grossly inferior pitchers were promoted ahead of him..

Given that Lackey is 31 and past his peak, yes, much better -- knucklers fade eventually but with wake having sorted out his back problem, if he's in the rotation he will end up with more wins and a better ERA+ than Lackey.

So the fact Wake has started five games and has 0 wins, and has a worse ERA+ at 40 innings to Lackeys 55 innings...is an illusion? And last year was a worse pitcher. Or are you going to handwave that away to injury?

Not only are you saying Wake isn't worse, you're saying Tim is a 'much' better pitcher than John Lackey. Despite his ERA+ being worse than John Lackey's at every point since 2005? 43 year old Tim Wakefield is a MUCH better pitcher than 31 year old John Lackey?

Wake's ERA's higher than lackey's because he has been badly messed around this year. He's been pitching well for the past month, but hasn't been allowed the innings to bring his ERA down. This year, Wake is a marginally better pitcher than Lackey; over his career, he's a much better pitcher.

Lackey has been throwing a cut fastball this year for the first time in his career, If Pitch fx is to believed. His command is nowhere near his historical baselines, so if you ask me, I say this special-cause variation has to be a factor in that.

I want to know why the change in pitch selection. Anyone have Farrell's cell number?

EDIT: I mean, look at the endpoints here. I assume you don't think Wakefield was choking in the 2003 ALCS when he carried the club to that seventh game - that's why the Boone HR is the endpoint. But then after that comes his three innings to save the Red Sox in Game 5, which you acknowledge are clutch. If a guy can both turn in those sorts of performances and also be a "humgongo choke-King", the title doesn't seem to mean much.

His postseason ERA since 2003 is beyond horrible--that's my methodology.

No it isn't, unless you're badly misusing the numbers. The sample is far, far too small to draw any conclusions. Statistically, we can't reject the null hypothesis that Wakefield's the same averageish starter in the postseason as he is in the regular season.

The problem with the Lackey signing is that he's being paid like an ace. Going into the season, I thought he was probably the fourth best pitcher in the rotation (behind Lester, Buccholz and Beckett, in that order). But, he's been better than Beckett, and it's still too early to say Daisuke has been a success (although his last two starts have been very promising). I don't think it's really fair to compare Wakefield to anyone at this point, just because his usage this season has been so awkward.

The problem with the Lackey signing is that he's being paid like an ace.

This depends on what you mean by "ace". Lackey's getting a lot less money than Sabathia, Santana, or Halladay. Lackey's comps are AJ Burnett (5/83), Carlos Zambrano (5/91), Derek Lowe (4/60), and Roy Oswalt (5/72). Those guys are "aces" in the pedantic-internet sense of being among the 30 best pitchers in baseball (well, not Lowe), but they're not "aces" in any sense under which Lackey could be considered a 3/4 starter.

There were scenarios that I could imagine preseason in which Lackey was the fourth or even fifth best starter on the Red Sox staff, and still totally earned his salary. At this point, in real life, he's the third-best starter on the team (or having the third-best season, anyway), and he hasn't been remotely worth it.

No it isn't, unless you're badly misusing the numbers. The sample is far, far too small to draw any conclusions. Statistically, we can't reject the null hypothesis that Wakefield's the same averageish starter in the postseason as he is in the regular season.

Yes, the fact that's he's absolutely sadly embarrassed himself in every single series since then is completely random.

I'm not gonna argue with perceptions. I watched the games since 2003, and I saw a nervous
wreck who had no idea where his pitch was going, BB'd like crazy, and got rocked for 6 HR's in
about 15 innings, and lost his playoff gig, in essence.

Tell me with a straight face you want Wake to start a future playoff game for the Red Sox. So I know what I'm dealing with.

Yes, the fact that's he's absolutely sadly embarrassed himself in every single series since then is completely random.

It's 24 innings spread over 6 years.

I know you are a Beckett fan but he's "sadly embarrassed himself" since 2007, with a 7.71 ERA in his last 21 playoff innings. I am sure you'd be comfortable with him starting a playoff game despite that.

Beckett--cost the Red Sox a chance of making the playoffs in 06, skated by in while the Red Sox blew out the opposition, and then ruined their postseason in 08 and 09. As long we're saying ridiculous ####.

31-Look at the Saturday chatter. I said it was a fairly important game.

And I'll try again. Would you give Wake a playoff start? Don't avoid the question. I would not give him one, unless there were no other viable starter available. I understand that the sample size is small, but that's the nature of this beast. Like you said in a recent thread about relievers, with small samples one needs to rely mainly on observation. I observed a knuckeballer who was BB'ing ~ 6 per nine in between bombs. Maybe you saw a pitcher who was getting nickle and dimed to death. Can't argue with perceptions, but the notion that Tim Wakefield has a postseason monkey on his back is far fom ridiculous. His numbers in the playoffs are terrible.

But here's hoping he goes on a May-June hot streak.

29-So now these particular assertions about Beckett are "ridiculous ####"? Very cute move, when it seems to me you were dead serious the exact same points it in a recent thread. You don't like Beckett, we get it.

What I've observed about Beckett is that he's a fat lump who can't locate in the zone anymore. Just as long as we're saying ridiculous ####.

Wake was the presumptive ALCS MVP in 2003 before Grady Little put his head up his ass. 2-0, 2.08 in two starts, he was fantastic. One of two things happened;

The guy who already had 12 years of MLB experience was completely rattled by Boone's homer and has soiled himself everytime he takes the mound since

or

A knuckleballer notorious for alternating the brilliant with the horrible has gotten knocked around in a few random starts.

Would you give Wake a playoff start?

No I wouldn't. That has nothing to do with me thinking he's some kind of mental and emotional midget and everything to do with the fact that he's not deserving of it. At best he's the fifth best starter on the Sox and given his age/health you always are taking a chance when you throw him out there at this point.

Tim Wakefield is currently an averagish to below average starter. The Sox rotation, despite their struggles, still projects to be extremely good, and I think Wakefield is the 6th best starter the Red Sox have. So, if the Red Sox make the playoffs, do I want the 6th starter in the rotation? Certainly not.

My reasoning, though, is that Tim Wakefield is the same pitcher in the postseason that he is in the regular season, and the regular season Tim Wakefield is the 6th best starter on the club. If the Red Sox were a different club, one with a huge offense, a solid front three in the rotation, and Wakefield among some averagish guys at the back of the rotation, I would have absolutely no problem thinking of Wakefield as the 4th starter in the postseason.

EDIT: another way of saying this is that in both 2007 and 2008, Tim Wakefield was the Red Sox #4 starter, and I think that was clearly the right choice in retrospect.

Would you start a below average pitcher over Tim Wakefield in an important game? If it got to the playoffs and the Sox had lost two starters, leaving Wake the #4, would you rather send out a Mike Bowden type? Say the team had traded for Chris Volstad or Kyle Kendrick to be the #5 guy down the stretch - do you pitch Volstad or Kendrick ahead of Wake?

To do the comparison right, it should be between Wakefield and pitchers somewhat worse than he is. Obviously Wakefield shouldn't start ahead of better pitchers. I take Wakefield ahead of pitchers who aren't as good as him, because I don't think Tim Wakefield is a different pitcher in the regular season and in the postseason. Do you go with the worse pitcher because of fears that Wakefield is unclutch?

I think Wake is still this club's #4 starter, ahead of Dice-K and Lackey. therefore I would start him in the postseason, where his track record including Pirates 1992 is not bad, given his modest position in the various rotations.

And if he's on one of those 1995/2002/2009 first half runs when the postseason rolls around, I start him ahead of everyone including probably Lester.

If it got to the playoffs and the Sox had lost two starters, leaving Wake the #4, would you rather send out a Mike Bowden type? Say the team had traded for Chris Volstad or Kyle Kendrick to be the #5 guy down the stretch - do you pitch Volstad or Kendrick ahead of Wake?

I think Wake is still this club's #4 starter, ahead of Dice-K and Lackey. therefore I would start him in the postseason, where his track record including Pirates 1992 is not bad, given his modest position in the various rotations.

Lets just see if his back holds up till July - and I don't think (hope) he will ever start a playoff game for the Sox again.

I would not give him one, unless there were no other viable starter available.

To clarify this, I'd have him 6th. If Bowden came up this year because of a few injuries to starters, and threw well, I'd start him
over Wake. In other words, if a guy like Bowden appeared to be an average-ish alternative, he'd get the nod. Right now, Wake is my #6 choice to get a playoff start.

The guy who already had 12 years of MLB experience was completely rattled by Boone's homer and has soiled himself everytime he takes the mound since

or

A knuckleballer notorious for alternating the brilliant with the horrible has gotten knocked around in a few random starts.

Well, the miraculous, edge of disaster relief stint vs the NYY's in 2004 aside (and it was beautiful), all four times he's started since he's stunk badly. Walks and HR's. This entire thing began as a response to the notion km's statement that Wake has been a better pitcher than Lackey. I don't think the 4 horrible starts in a row are random, but most of you seem to. Before 2003 the guy was a mixed bag in the playoffs. Since then he's been awful.

Also, to be clear--I'm not saying the Boone HR caused anything, just that it seems to roughly demarcate the point where he started to suck.
But it had to weight heavy on Wakes's heart. I remember reading that he was inconsolable...

Just to be clear - the only guy you'd start over Wakefield would be someone who appeared to be about as good as Wakefield? This "humgongo choke-king" stuff is merely a tie-breaker, nothing more?

Let's say Wake in 2010 goes 12-6 with a 4.35 ERA, and Lackey and Dice go, umm, 8-11 with a 4.95 ERA, and 11-10 with a 4.80 ERA. I'd give the nod to Lackey and Dice over Wake in a situation where the 3 were the options for 4th starter. This is the sort of choice-scenario I'm talking about. I don't trust Wake in the playoffs anymore. I feel the 4 awful outings in a row are far more meaningful than you do. He wasn't nickle and dimed, he was crushed. If there was any daylight at all to pick another vet over Wake, I'm going with the vet. And give me a good enough excuse, I'll go with the kid as well.

Lackey again had no ability to put hitters away. He looked as bad as his 1-4 BB/K ratio suggests. According to PitchFX, he's lost 1 MPH off his fastballs and added 1 MPH to his curve and change. Not a good combo.

Lackey again had no ability to put hitters away. He looked as bad as his 1-4 BB/K ratio suggests. According to PitchFX, he's lost 1 MPH off his fastballs and added 1 MPH to his curve and change. Not a good combo.

1 MPH may be within variance, so that may not be real.

But in general, a pitcher like Lackey would be someone who cannot afford to lose too much velocity off his fastball. Otherwise, hitters can sit on his other array of pitches.

Not so much as a hijack but as an aside - Omar was filleted on BTF for not getting Lackey this off-season, if I recall

As I also recall, most of the Sox fans(including me) thought it was a reasonable move with the exception of maybe being a year too long. So who knows sometimes. Hey earlier in the year I would've been happy to see them get rid of Papi, I really did think he was gone for all money this time, now he's OPSing over .900.

Well, John Lackey IS a better pitcher than Tim Wakefield so I think that is to be expected. Wake survives on a trick pitch basically so the idea that he struggles against better teams should not come as a particular shock. I don't think anyone (well, Karl but...) is of the opinion that Wake is anything more than a useful innings eater type and obviously with the injuries/age the inning eating portion of that gets secondary.

Where I (and I think MCoA though I don't want to put words in his mouth) take issue with what you are saying is you are assigning a personality trait to someone's performance. I think suggesting that Wake is Mr. Choke is just as foolish as the idea that David Eckstein or Derek Jeter has some magical pixie dust that makes his teams win. He doesn't suck but obviously he is not very good against top teams and putting him out there against those teams is probably not a good idea. That's not a matter of mental weakness, it's a matter of being an average/below-average pitcher.

If Wake can stay healthy he'd be a very nice weapon out of the pen for a playoff series. Depending on the schedule you get, one really bad start early in the series can hamstring your bullpen, as can any extra-inning games. Wakefield is a great hedge against that, and if healthy I'd rather have him in the 'pen than your random Joe Nelson or Scott Schoenweis types.

With almost 3000 IP at an ERA+ of 108, Wake is much better than an average pitcher, whether you are measuring by mean, median or mode.

Assuming you are not measuring him against a true #1 (Lester, this year, though Buchholz is close.) then whether you start him in the postseason depends on what kind of start you need. He will have a high probability of giving you length, but the quality will be more variable than with most pitchers, ranging from unhittable on his good days to 8 runs in 5IP on his bad ones. If your offense is working well, a reliably mediocre pitcher (Lackey) may be a better option. If not, roll the dice with Wake -- he will have a better chance of winning a 2-1 ballgame than most.

And if he's on one of his rare rolls, he counts as an ace by any standards, based on results.

Is there some reason starting pitchers who come to the Red Sox in midcareer tend to suck in their first year? Just for fun, let's look at the ERA+ of starting pitchers for their first year in Boston and for the three years before.

Lackey
150
119
118
91 with Boston

Beckett
138
108
118
95 with Boston

Penny
104
147
67
84 with Boston

Wells
118
106
104
102 with Boston

Miller
132
106
131
92 with Boston

Schilling
157
142
159
150 with Boston

Clement
112
106
120
99 with Boston

We could also add the Piniero and Smoltz cases to this, though both were coming off injuries and given different roles so it's hard to compare. We could also add Matsuzaka, though I don't have any ERA+ translations for him for his Japan time. But it's fair to say that these three guys were all disappointing in their first year in Boston.

Just for fun let's strip out the names and just list those 28 seasons in descending order of ERA+:

Is there some reason starting pitchers who come to the Red Sox in midcareer tend to suck in their first year?

In this ballpark, in this division, with the sometimes-iffy defense behind them, pitchers have to adjust and unlearn bad habits that they perhaps got away with in other places and divisions, but here will kill them.[/WAG]

With almost 3000 IP at an ERA+ of 108, Wake is much better than an average pitcher, whether you are measuring by mean, median or mode.

Over the course of his career (which you are discussing) and on May 27, 2010 (which I was discussing) are two different things.

Is there some reason starting pitchers who come to the Red Sox in midcareer tend to suck in their first year?

That's an interesting list. Just a quick eyeballing suggests a few broad categories;

Injury - Penny, Miller, Smoltz if you include him were all rehab projects of one sort of another

Age - Wells, Schilling were older and some decline was in order. I don't think either guy could be fairly evaluated as being appreciably less than was expected.

Other - Lackey, Beckett, Clement - This is the list that probably deserves the scrutiny. Some form of "adjustment to the AL East" is the easiest explaination though I'm not sold on it. My recollection of Beckett's 2006 is that the Sox were not letting him throw the curve between starts as a means of protecting against the blister issue and so in games he never had the feel for it. I don't know if that was the problem or what but it was a story that year. Clement and Lackey I got nothing on.

seems like the Yankees have a trend similar to the Red Sox, though perhaps not quite as disappointing. The Yankees could throw in Igawa and perhaps a few others. Putting all the Yankee seasons together (40 seasons in all):

there's a fair amount of decency there and some plain good pitching. First-year-as-a-yankee seasons are evenly divided between the top 20 seasons and the bottom 20 seasons, so the median first-year-as-a-yankee season is pretty close to the median season overall.

Darren - Check the weather. I understand that unless it is very warm it can feel a lot colder up there because of the breeze. Also, do yourself the favor of getting there for BP. It's not just the chance of getting a ball that makes it worth it but it's just a tremendous vantage point to watch from. Stay awake though, balls get on top of you quicker than you realize and even the lazy fly ball type of homer is moving at a pretty good clip. I took an Ortiz fly ball in the chest during BP my one time up there. It was the classic "Fenway fly" kind of ball and it knocked me back.

The seats are incredible except on balls hit directly at the wall. Anything to about the warning track you lose and you have to rely on the crowd to sort of inform you.

Probably but screw it, it's likely to come in pretty handy. I'm not one who has a problem with people bringing their gloves to games. I figure if you are sitting in an area where a ball is likely to come at you it beats the alternative of a broken hand or broken nose.

My recollection (it's been about five years since I was up there) is that quite a few people brought gloves.

Whatever you do, please make sure if a home run comes towards you you deal with it in a manly fashion. I had a friend sit up there once and he got his picture on the front of the Globe's sports section cowering like a 5 year old girl at a home run.

What a complete and utter disgrace from these two turkeys the last two nights. I am not surprised that all the hard work done over the last two weeks comes undone in two days courtesy of Dice and Wakefield.

I was a bit torn last night. On the one hand I think he ran into bad luck, there were at least three balls that I thought should have been caught with a more competent outfield but on the other hand you can spin all you want and 14 base runners in 6 innings against a less than impressive offensive team like Oakland is troubling. In its own way it was more worrisome than his recent starts because he threw strikes last night and still got crummy results.

I always loved those stats. "Tim Wakefield is 53-0 with a 0.63 ERA against the Rays" or whatever the numbers were. It seemed like everyone always wanted to say "it's the dome!" and it never struck anyone that maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that for 10 years the Rays were a glorified AAA team.

Can we get a thread about how awful Bogar has been? He just made maybe the worst send I can recall in the 3rd inning today, sending Martinez with no one out and turning a chance at a big inning into nothing.

Another classic, gutsy performance from Timmy "Balls to the Wall" Wakefield. Or should I say "Balls Off the Wall?" Heh heh. Looking forward to another month of such excellence. Oh yes, he's a perfectly good starter!

The Sox are 2-6 in games he's started, 3-9 in games he's appeared in. How many more chances does he get? I say one more such stinker, and we go with anybody else we can dredge-up. Even Boof.